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Gary Vaynerchuk – People, Wake Up!
By Shlomo Maital
Gary Vaynerchuk
I am attending, and speaking at, an entrepreneurship conference in Monterrey, Mexico, sponsored by Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico’s leading science and engineering university. The opening keynote speaker of the conference, known as INCmty, was Gary Vaynerchuk.
Here is Vaynerchuk’s story, and a short version of his powerful message. Happy birthday, Gary – he will be 44 years old on Nov. 14.
He was born in Babruysk in the former Soviet Union – Belarus today — and immigrated to the US in 1978 as a child. Vaynerchuk’s family was very poor – he lived in a studio-apartment in Queens, New York, with eight other family members. Vaynerchuk was a child entrepreneur – he operated a lemonade-stand and earned money on weekends trading baseball cards. At age 14, he joined his family’s retail-wine business, and became known as a wine critic who expanded his family’s wine business – he did it, some 20 years ago, by moving part of it online, long before such a strategy was known and implemented. I first noticed him, when I watched his viral YouTube video, Do What You Love!
Here is the crux of his message to all of us. It’s only 500 words.
“Everyone in this room underestimates the power of the Internet. Everyone! Once economic power resided with those in the middle – the distributors, retail stores, etc. Today, the value chain is different. The ‘middle’ is gone. YOU have the power and ability to leverage the Internet. YOU need to become a communication media expert. Every single person can be their own communicator. Audio, video, text. If you are not creating 50-100 pieces of content daily – you are missing the boat. YOU need to start a podcast! The key – it’s free. You do not have to pay for distribution (of information), you don’t have to pay to make contact with people.
“Everyone in this room needs to create an online journal. This is REQUIRED. It is not a luxury. Today, those aged 13-22 have remarkable online talent and create amazing content. Unless you produce content you (and your business) will be outmaneuvered! Are you a salesperson? Or a marketer?
“Raising capital – the idea that you DESERVE investment capital is laughable. You can build a business without raising capital.
“Responsibility — the best part of being an employee is, you can always blame someone else. And it is done all the time. But as a founder, an entrepreneur? 100% of your problems are YOUR fault. When those you hire screw up – it’s your fault, YOU hired them. As parents, we blame everyone else for our kid’s problems – social media, government. IT is OUR FAULT. We must take responsibility. WE are the parents, not they.
“There has never been a better time to be alive, despite all the pessimism. No world wars, no black plague… so we need to eliminate excuses and take responsibility. …. My career is based on ‘underpriced attention’. Be “in the dirt” not “in the clouds”…. Be in the world….
“I “day trade” attention (see his best-selling book Crushing It!). You need to understand where attention is! There are two key issues. A. your product. B. your ability to tell people about it. Which is more important? B is!! Your ability to tell people about it!
“Artificial intelligence poses a danger. Alexa, Google Assistant, etc. are powerful. In the next 10 years, when Alexa tells us what to buy, your brand will be all you have — will Amazon’s Alexa be objective, or advise you based on what’s best for Amazon and its clients? Everything we talk about today did not exist 10-15 years ago. This will be true in the future as well. “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”.
So – stop thinking. Start doing. Think about what you want to say [about your product or service or business]. Then say it. Say it well! Learn to say it well. You are not effective in video? Get better!
Internet for the World: Facebook & Drones!
By Shlomo Maital
Hard to believe, but the World Wide Web is only about 23 years old. In 1993, only 20 million people were on the Internet. In 1999 only four per cent of the world’s population of 6 billion people, or 240 m., were Internet-linked. Today 40 percent of the world’s population of over 7 billion people, or some 2.8 billion people, is Internet-connected! The Internet has changed our lives massively and permanently. That is – those of us who are connected.
But what about the remaining 4.2 billion, or 60 per cent of the world? Google and Facebook are both racing to find ways to connect them. It is not easy. Most of those 4.2 billion people live in countries with minimal infrastructure. How can it be done?
According to Vindu Goel, writing in today’s New York Times, Facebook is pulling an “Amazon” (remember Jeff Bezos’ recent pitch, that Amazon will deliver packages with drones) and is hiring as many as 50 aeronautical engineers and space scientists, to “figure out how to beam Internet access down from solar-powered drones and other ‘connectivity aircraft’.” This will be done in a new Facebook Connectivity lab and a project called Internet.org. Part of Mark Zuckerberg’s goal, apparently, is to make (and keep) Facebook the most cool, interesting place to work. He is fighting against the curse of scale – big companies lose their creative drive, and their creative people, as they scale up and bureaucratize.
Earlier, Google too announced a drive to connect those unconnected 4.2 billion. Google’s approach currently focuses on high-flying balloons. Facebook is also working on compressing Internet data, cutting the cost of Internet mobile phones and finding ways to hook up remote areas.
Neither Facebook nor Google seem to have a clear business model in mind for their balloons or drones. The advertising model probably won’t work, because most of those unconnected 4.2 billion people are quite poor – although the late C.K. Prahalad pointed out, in his book, Fortunes at the Bottom of the Pyramid, that collectively, they form a huge market.
Many analysts are very critical of both Google and Facebook for their ‘connect everyone’ efforts.
Maybe we are missing the point. Maybe Google, and Facebook, are trying to connect everybody, because – it’s just the right thing to do. Maybe this is a new face of capitalism? Could it possibly be? Maybe an exlusive capitalism that leaves out over half the world will eventually crumble, taking Google and Facebook with it..and maybe Sergei Brin, Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg realize it? Maybe inclusive capitalism is cool?!
TIMnovate 